HEALTH
Dengue moves north: CDC
Dengue fever has spread to northern Taiwan, increasing the threat of the mosquito-borne disease in its annual peak period, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. Late last month, a New Taipei City resident was confirmed to be infected with dengue fever after she visited Greater Kaohsiung, the CDC said. The 29-year-old woman, who has since been discharged from the hospital and is recovering, was the first dengue case in New Taipei City this summer, the center said. There have been 412 confirmed cases of dengue fever in the nation so far this year, compared with 214 during the same period last year, the CDC said, citing data as of Monday last week. It said that among the 412 cases, 309 were indigenous and 103 were imported from overseas. People should drain water containers and take precautions against mosquito bites, the CDC said.
NATIONAL DEFENSE
US forum set for October
The 13th annual US-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference, to be held from Oct. 5 to Oct. 7 in Williamsburg, Virginia, aims to examine Taiwan’s future defense and national security needs. “It is the most important private event reviewing US-Taiwan defense and national security issues each year,” US-Taiwan Business Council president Rupert Hammond-Chambers said, adding that the conference would consider Taiwan’s role in the US’ strategic rebalance toward Asia, examine Taiwan’s defense and military plans for the next five to 10 years and discuss the arms sales process. It is also expected to examine ways to expand current models for security cooperation as well as assess Taiwan’s indigenous submarine programs. US-Taiwan Business Council chairman Paul Wolfowitz — former head of the World Bank — is to be the conference host.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,